The Niagara News is the community newspaper of Niagara College located in Welland and Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. It is created and produced by the students of the Niagara College Journalism program.

Putting your passion to page

“The businessman and the manufacturer are more important than the writer and artist.” Isn’t that how the old saying goes?

Writing stories, whether they are fiction, non-fiction or whatever genre they may be: “Writing isn’t a real job; it’s a hobby,” others state proudly.

I cannot express how many people have looked completely perplexed to learn that my goal in life is to write. I don’t necessarily want to write for a paper or even go into the field of journalism, but rather I’m interested in working with others at a publishing house, editing or just helping in any way I can to help get well-deserving stories out there with the hope of one day finding the inspiration to produce my own novel.

Those of you who don’t believe writing is appropriate even to be considered a real job should take a moment and look at the facts.

Writing is a form of art. It may not be as visual as a painting or as lulling as a symphony of notes strung together, but there can be just as much passion coming from the words written on a page as the words rolling off someone’s tongue in song.

It’s more than just thousands of words on a page, though.

While everyone is capable of writing, that doesn’t mean everyone is good at it. Surely you have come across articles or posts on social media that cause you to cringe, or perhaps you are one of those people who sometimes misuse a comma or use the wrong homonym when writing. That’s OK. There isn’t anything wrong with that. Perhaps writing isn’t your passion.

For those who do find passion in writing and who strive to be better with each paragraph they write, like anything in life it takes practice. It takes dedication to learn the rules of grammar, because, as we all know, there are more rules than anyone cares to count.

Any novelist knows it takes a lot of work to write a story that is able to draw people in, to make readers feel as if they are in the story themselves, to make them feel the emotions they are trying to convey through the characters of the story.

Surely you, as the reader, have read a book where, once you started reading, you were captured by the flow of words and were unable to put the book down.

If everyone listened to the negative feedback and the stigma attached to being a writer, then we wouldn’t have all the great pieces of literature we have today. You wouldn’t have ever read that one particular book that was far too compelling and was able to draw you into the story. We wouldn’t have our favourite pieces of music that we play far too often on repeat. We wouldn’t even have the films or television shows we wait with anticipation for each and every week.

Someone had to sit down and spend hours upon hours writing each piece of dialogue and every detail toward the scenes before it could even be considered for production.

It could also be argued that we wouldn’t be where we are today and we wouldn’t have the knowledge we do as a society if someone hadn’t spent the time to write down all the information of the past.

But what about the money, you ask?

Sure, being a writer isn’t the best paying job there is out there. If you are looking to make a living being a novelist, you are going to have to work hard to produce a book or two first. Even then it isn’t the best.

According to the report done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2010, successful novelists and salaried authors made an average income somewhere around $65,960 a year.

In Canada, research done by PayScale indicates the average salary for a writer in Canada who doesn’t have more than 20-years’ experience is around $40,321 a year. Like any job though, the more experience you have in the field, the better your pay grade will become.
For many writers and other artists, though, it isn’t about the money. If it was, many would have gone for one of those more business-type jobs. For writers —and as it should be for anyone in the working world – it’s about doing something that you are passionate about and enjoy doing.

Like anything in life, practice makes perfect.

To all the aspiring writers out there…

Yes, you, with the taps and clicks of your pen in hand, or those of you furiously clinking the keys of your laptop while trying to find that one little word.

You, over there! Yes, you – the one with the scrawling and colour-coded squiggles or the frustrated doodles in the margins of your page.

You, the person struggling to find the inspiration you need to continue writing, or you, the person locked in a constant debate with your parents or professors who continue to tell you to “pick a real job.”

And how could we forget, you, the person who isn’t sure how to spell a word because you have never seen it written out, only spoken.

And you, the person who has locked your pages behind thick walls and chains to prevent prying eyes from falling upon them.

You’re writing is important, so don’t give up.

Don’t let others discourage you from writing and if it’s something you enjoy, don’t let anyone tell you different.